Thoughts, words, coffee and cake

Doing things that scare you…the pursuit of ‘growth’

March 6, 2014

Do something every day that scares you. If you’re an avid consumer of entrepreneurial writing, of self-development books, of psychology, or even of Pinterest quotes (who doesn’t love Pinterest quotes though), you will have almost definitely read those 7 words before.

Those 7 words. In that sentence, both a barrier and an answer. The truth, and a barrage of excuses. I cannot think of another sentence that evokes such a divisive reaction.

I swear I’ve been reading that sentence for years, and each time I’ve had that same thought, generally along the lines of “f*** off”.

F*** off, stupid quote. What do you know? You and your pop-psychology, hipster-fonted photo-vom. And on the few times I thought about it, and acknowledged that those 7 words mean something, I turned away and took the easy road and pretended to be doing something else. I thought I knew about growth.

Growth is a term loosely chucked about to describe what other people think you need to do to be ‘happy’. Growth is what we blindly pursue because once we’ve grown enough we’ll have the answer, right? To what? To life! To happiness!

Buy my course! Do this workbook! You must have a purpose, a passion, you need to grow and understand and then you will be happy! Follow your passion, don’t follow your passion, and so and so on.

Do something every day that scares you.

I define growth as an adventure. Growth is making an effort to try stuff out. If it’s crap, at least you know. If it’s good, you enjoy it, then great. In both ways you have ‘grown’, as you have tried, and have more knowledge.

It’s taken me a long time to reluctantly admit that those 7 words just may be onto something. For me, annoyingly, it’s actually true. It may not be for you, and it wasn’t for me, for a long time.

But I’ve forced myself to do ‘stuff’. Things I wouldn’t usually do ‘cos I know I’m crap at it, or it’s not for me, or I don’t feel confident enough, or all those usual excuses. I’ve cried and sat in the car and thought up every excuse under the sun as to why I shouldn’t do it. But do it, I did. Each time. And each time, it was never as bad as I thought.

Do things that scare you. Every day. Think outside. Make some effort. If you’re not trying, don’t complain.

What does ‘growth’ mean to you? All I ask is have a think about it. A real think. If the answer is “f*** off”, then that’s ok. But if the answer scares you…then that’s even better.

1 thought on “Doing things that scare you…the pursuit of ‘growth’”

[…] yourself, that barriers can be broken and eyes can be opened. Don’t settle. Do something that scares you. So many people, myself included, endure years of stressful or unstimulating work, truly believing […]

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About me

Hi everybody, I’m Sal – a 30-something blogger from the UK writing about slow living, nature, books and mental health, whilst attempting to stay uncluttered in a cluttered world…!
I love reading, thunderstorms, wild moorland, music of all forms, being a bit of a hippy, coffee, trees and all of the cake.
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